


What now? Let's see.

by astrokath



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Bad Poetry, Gen, Poetry, Sestina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-30
Updated: 2012-01-30
Packaged: 2017-10-30 09:30:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/330270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrokath/pseuds/astrokath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes running an Empire gets to be a bit much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What now? Let's see.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by recent [works](http://archiveofourown.org/works/329170) by [Minutia_R](http://archiveofourown.org/works/330059) and [Bracketyjack](http://archiveofourown.org/works/329942), I give you some of Gregor's poetic maunderings while drunk. This piece doesn't fit in with the others as well as I'd like, but late-night sestinas are tricky beasts to keep hold of.

I cannot look upon my Barrayar,

my war-torn, tortured home -- my heart! -- with eyes

that disregard the past, that do not see

the lies and crimes that brought us, all us Vor,

each painful step along this path that will,

I hope, some day absolve our debt of lives.

 

How many Emperors have lived their lives

believing in this myth of Barrayar?

What right grants every power to _my_ will?

What madness has been seen by Horus Eyes

and yet been shrugged off by my fellow Vor:

the curse of these Vorbarra genes? I see

 

no answer for me there! I only see

repeated costs to come, and wasted lives

between my hands. The weight of all those Vor,

the world they represent, my Barrayar,

demanding all that's worst before my eyes

and breaking down my walls of self and will.

 

The future closes in, and come what will

it falls to me to change our course, to see

this system shattered if I can. What eyes

could justly watch and only bless the lives

of mutie terrors born of Barrayar:

the joke that is the flower of the Vor?

 

My counts, my peers, my family of Vor

have placed this burdened change within my will

and though it knows it not, my Barrayar

 _will_ learn, and grow, and one day come to see

the strength that comes from strange and crippled lives,

the loves that live in ordinary eyes.

 

What answer's meet to unforgiving eyes?

The meek, the mutants, even us cursed Vor

have paid in countless thousands of lost lives.

So ask of _them_ what is to be my will:

the hope that one day all that live might see

and share the dream I have for Barrayar.

 

A world that thrives and lives within my eyes –

so bid farewell to Old Vor Barrayar!

And what will happen next? What now? Let's see.


End file.
